


20 Things That Nanbu Knows About Joe

by digitalpen



Series: The World Champion [1]
Category: Megalo Box (Anime)
Genre: Boxing, Found Family, Gen, List, Megalobox Spoilers, Team as Family, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 22:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20454788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalpen/pseuds/digitalpen
Summary: A look back from the final scene of the anime: an exploration of some aspects of Joe and Nanbu's relationship.  How did they become friends?  What do they know about each other?  Will they still work together after the tournament is over?





	20 Things That Nanbu Knows About Joe

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just a list of headcanons that I went through one day. In the future, I may attach some actual fics to this that relate to certain parts, so stay tuned if you're interested. I have no idea if anyone is even into this fandom anymore, but that just means that there's no pressure to be good. Enjoy. :)

Nanbu can feel the sunset. It's probably a fiery orange sunset tonight--that's what it feels like on his face. As soon as he had finished practicing his speech, Nanbu had put on a fresh shirt and then gone to sit outside, facing squarely West. It's warm, but the heat of the day has passed and now it's nice, which is why they decided to have the party outside.

Nanbu can hear a buzzing sound in the distance, one that's getting closer at a dangerous speed. That's Joe, who left earlier in the day to pick up supplies for the gym. Now that he's back, he can help Nanbu wrangle the kids and greet the guests when they start to arrive.

Gansaku Nanbu knows more than anyone about "Gearless" Joe, former Megaloboxing world champion. Well, maybe Joe himself knows more, but he doesn't share. The list of people who know things about Joe goes like this:  
1\. Joe  
2\. Nanbu  
3\. Abuhachi, the mechanic  
4\. Sachio  
5\. Yuri (Maybe Yuri belongs higher? He and Joe talk a lot, but Nanbu doesn't actually know what they talk about. He doesn't think they have a lot in common, outside of boxing.)  
6\. Fujimaki  
7\. Yukiko Shirato  
8\. Aragaki

That about covers it. Sure, the whole world knows Joe's name now, or at least they think they do, but that's not the same as knowing Joe. Team Nowhere makes a good effort to stay away from the media after the championship. The most substantial thing about Joe on TV is a recording of the final match of Megalonia. That's it.  
Sometimes, Nanbu takes a minute to order his thoughts and the things that he knows about Joe. That list looks something like this, though it's never written down.

1\. Joe isn't a legal citizen. It was obvious from the moment Nanbu first saw the kid. Legal citizens don't get their kicks fighting in back-alley bareknuckle grudge matches. Sure, there were probably a few citizens watching in the crowd (Nanbu would know--he was one of them. His ID card is shoved into the back of his sock drawer, grubby but legitimate), but nobody with a real ID would be down in that ring. It wasn't even a real ring, just a square someone had marked with chalk on the cement, already smudged and scuffed from other fights, measured out with paces instead of meters.

2\. Joe is tall, built like a beanpole, exactly 5'11'' and 118 pounds. That makes him bantamweight, smack dab between flyweight and featherweight, and it was his official class during Megalonia and the fights preceding it. Nanbu remembers looking at Glen Burroughs on the tournament roster and flinching. Burroughs was heavyweight, at least twice as heavy as Joe, not counting his gear. It seemed cruel, looking at the two of them standing side by side in the ring. 

3\. Joe is somewhere in his twenties. The birthday on his ID card is April 18, but they didn't choose that one. Three or four years ago, Nanbu had asked Joe how old he was. The kid just shrugged and said twenty-two. Nanbu doesn't think that that answer was totally accurate. Joe probably doesn't even know the real answer. So, instead of celebrating his birthday, they all celebrate his championship, and the anniversary of the Team Nowhere Gym. 

4\. Joe doesn't have a real name. Not in the way that Nanbu and Sachio do--their names are real names, given to them by their parents, with kanji and surnames and everything. If Joe's parents gave him a name, then they didn't live long enough to share it with him. (Nanbu assumes that Joe's family is dead, like Sachio's. He doesn't know this for sure, but it makes the most sense.)

When Nanbu first met Joe, he called him "kid" and "you". Joe had always called him "Pops" and "man" in return. The kid had also used his name, every once in a while, the same way one of his old students would have. It made him feel a little funny when he did that, like he was playing at being a real coach again. Eventually, Joe was saying Nanbu's name enough that it started to feel comfortable. 

Once they had signed their first contract with Fujimaki, Nanbu had started calling him "partner". It had been a nervous, frustrating sort of day. Nanbu had been anticipating their contract for the money, first. But he had also been curious to see what his scrappy new student would put down on the signature line. Instead of a name, Nanbu had been disappointed to see a big black X. 

A few months after that, once the kid had earned his ring name, he proudly signed a new contract with scrawly English letters, "Junk Dog". Nanbu sometimes called him Junk Dog after that, even when they weren't in the ring. It felt a little better than "hey, you" did. Once in a while, he would even joke around and call the kid "mutt". Usually when he did something stupid at practice.

Then they got Joe's ID, and they got the closest thing Joe's ever had to a real name. Sure, there's still no surname, and it's still in English characters, but this one is actually a name. It's not like Nanbu can yell "hey, Junk Dog" at his student in public. This one's a lot better. 

5\. Joe has scars all over. A couple on his chest, one nasty one down by his left hip, a few on his face. There's probably more that he keeps hidden under his hair. Joe's knuckles are covered in thick scar tissue, and even if he wore boxing gloves and wraps for every fight for the rest of his life, Nanbu's sure it wouldn't go away. Nanbu can't see the scars anymore (Nanbu can't see anything anymore, haha), but he knows they're there. He feels the scars on Joe's hands whenever the kid passes him something to hold or when he grabs Nanbu's arm to show him around someplace unfamiliar.

6\. Joe broke his left collarbone once. Nanbu doesn't know when it happened, or why, just that Joe's clavicle got broken sometime before they met. He knows this because he had to train Joe out of favoring it, back in the beginning. His hooks on that side used to have the slightest hitch, like he didn't want to leave his shoulder unprotected. He worked through it years ago, before Megalonia was even a word, and now you can't even tell.

7\. Joe loves his motorcycle more than food. Really, he does. Nanbu's talked with the mechanic about Joe's crappy bike. He's had it for years, apparently, probably since he was a teenager. Nanbu's heard stories about Joe limping into the shop, covered in bruises and dragging the thing behind him--with a twisted wheel mount or a shot engine or a popped tire--and begging Abuhachi to fix it. Usually with only a few yen on him, sacrificed easily to get the thing running again.

Nanbu wishes he would get a car, now that he has tournament money, or a helmet at least. He doesn't. Just rides all over the restricted area with his hair in the wind, kicking up dust clouds, in those old goggles he has. They're thick and sturdy, with tinted glass lenses, surely as old as Joe is himself. Last time Nanbu saw those goggles, there was a hairline crack on one lens, but he doesn't remember when that happened. The crack's probably still there, and as far as Nanbu knows, ten more have joined it. 

8\. Joe does like good food, even if he eats like a starving animal sometimes. Seriously, it used to be that anytime Nanbu saw the kid with food, it was gone in a nanosecond. He looked like he was trying to choke himself with how fast he ate. Once Joe and Nanbu started eating together more often, they got him to slow down some. Once they were training seriously, during those wild three months where Joe basically moved onto the boat, he started eating like a normal person. Used chopsticks, drank his soup at a human pace, and thank god for it. Megalonia training got Nanbu to finally start cooking again, and he'd be damned if the kid wasn’t going to enjoy it. 

9\. Joe’s favorite food is watermelon, which they couldn't get for a while. During the summer after Megalonia, Nanbu went out and got one from a market somewhere (not by himself, of course--Aragaki drove). The three of them--Joe, Nanbu, and Sachio--went through it in three days, thanks to Joe eating about five times his share. Nanbu could go out to sit in the sun and listen to the two kids laughing while Joe taught Sachio to spit watermelon seeds out into the river. He also had the unfortunate experience of listening to Joe indulge his old habit, and slurp through a whole slice of melon in the space of a single breath. It was horrifying.

10\. Joe can read. He has a basic education. In the beginning, Nanbu wasn't sure that was the case. The kid was quiet, and the only thing they talked about was boxing and gear and money. Then he saw the kid's signature on that contract. Just an X, not very promising. Nanbu wasn't lying to himself, he knew that the kids who grew up on the streets didn't see education as a priority. They had other things to worry about. But if his partner couldn't even read, what did that mean for them, business-wise? Would someone take advantage of Joe, if he couldn't read a contract? Nanbu worried about those things. Not enough to keep him up at night, not even enough to bring it up to the kid. But enough that he was relieved when Joe demonstrated basic literacy in front of him.

They were sitting outside a bar somewhere--or was it a restaurant? And Joe had turned to a new poster, plastered over the carpet of old flyers. Nanbu didn't recognize it; it had probably been put up that day, maybe even an hour ago. No pictures, just a weird purple font that said there would be a fight next month, between two fighters that Nanbu couldn't even remember.

"Hey, Pops, wish we could get tickets to that one, eh? Sounds like Hanazawa's gonna get crushed." 

"Huh, yeah."

It wasn't until that later that night that Nanbu realized what that meant, that Joe had read the poster, understood what it said. He grinned to himself at the thought, then got up to grab another beer from the fridge. 

11\. Joe is reckless. In the beginning, Nanbu had wanted to tear his hair out, watching that kid in the ring. He left sloppy openings all over the place, and a few of his opponents actually had the skill to exploit them. It was rough, and lots of weekends would see Joe crashing on Nanbu's couch while he recovered from a rough match. But pain was a good teacher, and all of Joe's openings gradually got fixed. Soon he was fighting like a real boxer and they managed to get some discipline into him. His recklessness still manifests in odd moments, like his fight against Aragaki, but Joe hasn't come out of a fight that badly in a while, which Nanbu knows is a good thing. Used to be, his whole job felt like he was just trying to keep the kid alive.

12\. Joe cuts his hair with a kitchen knife in the bathroom. This obviously doesn't happen very often, because Joe's preferred style is more like a tumbleweed than anything else, but it does happen. Nanbu guesses that it's necessity that drives him to hack it all back once in a blue moon--otherwise it might get too long to see through. The good thing about Joe's hair is that it curls so much that you can't even tell when it's uneven. Honestly, Nanbu's a little bit jealous. The kid's got more hair than he knows what to do with, and Nanbu can't even grow any on top anymore. Kid better enjoy it while he's got it.

13\. Joe doesn't really do romance. Nanbu’s never seen him with a girl, never seen him with any guys either. It seems that Joe prefers to go through life without getting tied down like that. Nanbu can’t really blame the kid—his whole life revolves around boxing, and it’s probably not easy to find a partner who will respect that. Nanbu does his part to help rebuff people’s unwelcome romantic advances. And now that he and Joe and Sachio all live at the gym together, it’s not like the kid’s gonna be all alone.

14\. Joe likes movies. Movies are really the only reliable way to get Joe to sit still for two hours. It doesn't really matter if it's a good movie or not, because Joe gets caught up in cheesy rom-coms and terrible action and documentaries about ocean life the same way. After the tournament ended and the hype died down, the members of Team Nowhere would spend long nights watching whatever Sachio could dig up for them. Nanbu would sit in a plastic garden chair, one ear turned to the old CRT, while the kids took the couch. Sachio would take the time to try and describe how the characters looked, the scenes, what everybody was doing, always tripping over his words in haste. Joe would always be silent the whole way through. Nanbu can imagine the look on his eyes, trained on the screen.

15\. Joe looks really pitiful when you tie him up and force him not to train. It's almost funny just how sad he is when you lock him indoors. Nanbu didn't know this until after Joe's fight with Aragaki. Two mornings after that fight, Nanbu woke up, looked out the window, and choked on his own spit when he saw Joe outside, trying to stretch out for a day of training. He had jumped up, grabbed Sachio, and promptly shanghaied Sachio into watching Joe for twenty minutes while he picked through a pile of junk for a suitable length of chain.

The memory of Joe’s face when he got that chain around the kid’s leg is something Nanbu will treasure forever. He just looked so betrayed, like a kicked puppy. “Well,” Nanbu had said, “If you’re gonna run around and act like a bad dog, then I’m gonna tie you up like one, mutt.” Joe had just looked at him, pitiful with a face that was more bruise than regular skin. “I’ll take it off when you’re healed enough to train again, and not a minute before.” Then he and Sachio both spent a good week and a half giggling at how silly the kid looked, tied up on the couch. It was pretty hilarious.

16\. Joe had never been to a real hospital until after he was already champion. Nanbu knows this because Joe told him. The whole team had to take a trip after the finals were done, because Joe collapsed in the ring right after and the officials were all freaking out, thought he had a concussion. He did have a concussion, but they didn't have to panic about it. Joe's had concussions before, and Nanbu knows the procedure. They had finished up with all the brain damage questions (what’s your name, what year is it, do you remember what happened today…) and they were waiting for someone to come look at Joe’s eye. Kid just looked up from his hands and said, “Huh. Never been in one of these before.”

17\. Joe is a rough sleeper. He just tosses and turns all night, throws his arms and legs around in his sleep. Nanbu doesn't know how he gets any rest. Sachio sleeps curled up like a cat, and Nanbu himself doesn't move around a lot, especially when he's drunk (the kids complain that he snores, but they can get over it). Joe moves around so much that he might as well be sleepwalking.

18\. When Joe used gear, it was always more a crutch than an enhancement.

So, when you train a new Megaloboxer, there's a few things you've gotta do. You have to drill them in the basic forms. This wasn't so bad for Joe, who was already a good fighter. He picked that up quick. You also have to suppress the flinching instinct, that's important. Joe was good at that, too, the kid's great at taking punches. The last thing you have to do before they can actually start fighting is get them used to the gear.

In a real boxing gym, you do this by running drills in a light set of training gear, which doesn't offer much support or strength. A set of training gear is really just there to teach the boxer what it feels like, where the weight's distributed, which movements are restricted, how reaction times change. When Nanbu trained Joe, there was no training gear, just the old set of trainer's gear, which was cumbersome and meant for absorbing the force of a boxer's punch.

They ordered Joe's old gear out of a catalog, pooled their money to cover shipping. And then they ran drills in that, which was okay. It took a while for Joe to get used to the weight, even though he had a bare-bones model. He always seemed to chafe at the restriction, though, flexing around underneath to get it to sit right.

Nevertheless, the gear always did its job. Joe liked to use it defensively once he got the knack for it. It shored up his guard and helped with blocking. And when he wore gear in the underground, his jabs were practically lethal. 

It’s just that “Gearless” Joe surpassed Junk Dog so thoroughly, in just three months of training. Losing the gear turned out to be way more than just a gimmick. Watching the kid shed the old gear in the match with Burroughs had been exhilarating, and not just because it had been one of the last things Nanbu had seen. Joe didn’t need the gear, and he probably never had.

19\. Joe looks really scary when he wants to. Nanbu can remember the Look, the way that Joe goes from man to rabid dog in just seconds. It’s something in his posture, which goes aggressive and hard where Joe is normally relaxed. His face fills with an animal rage, heart-stopping and barely contained.

Nanbu hopes Joe never points the Look at him again. He has nightmares about that scary version of Joe sometimes. A cold, wild Joe, who steps into the ring with the Look on and doesn't drop it at all. And when the bell rings, the crazy bastard Joe sits down in his corner and Nanbu gets up and looks back, and it just isn’t pretty. The ring is splattered liberally with blood, and the other guy is sprawled out on his back in a puddle of it, dead from a punch to the temple.

20\. Joe's a pretty good liar. Now he’s got nothing on Nanbu, who can tell a believable lie just as easy as breathing. But for a while there, Joe and Nanbu were in the business of fixing fights, making a fake knockout believable to huge crowds. The kid picked up a thing or two about telling lies.  
It’s the worst when Joe lies to Nanbu though. Joe lies to Nanbu when they’re in the ring and he’s getting beat up bad. They’re innocuous little things—“I’m fine,” or “My wrist doesn’t hurt,” or “Just one more round, Pops,”—and they’re believable, too. But Nanbu needs facts to be a good second, not falsehoods. When the truth comes out later, Nanbu always feels hot and gross, like he’s not worth the truth.

“Hey, Joe!” Nanbu yells out toward the spot where Joe parks his bike. “Help me bring out all the chairs for the party!”

There’s the crunch of Joe’s footsteps on gravel as he comes around. His weight’s back, like he’s carrying something. 

“Man, gimme a break, Pops,” he says. “I’ve been out all day, and I even hung those lights like you asked.”

“You hung the lights? I couldn’t even tell, it looks the same out here!”

Nanbu can hear Joe smirk. “Fine, just let me put this in the back first. Then I’ll get the chairs, okay?”

“Sure thing, partner, I’ll show you where I want them. And hey, lighten up! It’s your party, too, kid.”

“Yeah.”


End file.
